Zoho Social Review – Does It Have The Right Tools For Social Media Management?

Zoho is a true jack of all trades. Emails. Sales. Finances. Projects. IT Support. And yes, social. And this only covers about 10% of the services Zoho offers! 

If you want pretty solid quality and affordable pricing, Zoho is generally the right choice. With that said, however, Zoho Social might be a pleasant surprise for you. The UI is very clean, easy-to-use, and generally one of the best SMM tools. 

Also, it’s affordable. Monthly plans start from $15, and it covers the most essential social platforms—Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Google My Business. 

So, if you’re in the market for a social media management solution or not too satisfied with whatever you’re using now, it’s well worth considering Zoho Social. Let’s find out why in this ultimate Zoho Social review.

What Is Zoho Social? 

Zoho Social empowers businesses, agencies, and freelancers’ marketers to harness social media through connecting platforms under one easy-to-use dashboard. With it, you can schedule posts, monitor keywords, work with team members, and more. 

The added perk is that if you’re already in Zoho’s ecosystem, you can link it up to their CRM and other tools. 

All of these features are packed in a streamlined tool that just about anybody can pick up using within a few minutes. 

Zoho Social Features

In short, Zoho has a ton of features. If you have used SMM tools in the past, you’ll likely be familiar with them. However, what’s nice is that even in lower-tiered pricing, you still get access to reporting and other typically more expensive SMM features. 

Here’s the complete Zoho feature list: 

• Automated Publishing
• Brand Tracking
• Collaboration
• Content Management
• Customer Engagement
• Multi-Account Management
• Post Scheduling
• Reporting/Analytics
• Social Media Monitoring
• Facebook Ad racking
• Engagement Tracking
• Analytics
• Contact Management
• Client-login
• Branded reports 
• Conversion Tracking
• Customer Targeting
• Keyword Filtering
• Multi-Account Management
• Post Scheduling

How To Use Zoho Social 

Zoho Social is perfect for both social marketing experts and newbies. You can set up an account and use it for free for 30 days. Best of all, your account will revert to a free account should you decide you don’t want to upgrade just yet. 

After setting an account password, Zoho will ask a few more questions like company size to tailor your experience. 

Next, you need to connect your social accounts. You can get started with just one or all of them. However, you will be limited to just one brand. 

A Brand includes a total of 7 social channels: 1 Twitter Profile, 1 Instagram Profile, 1 Facebook Page, 1 Facebook Group, 1 LinkedIn Company Page, 1 LinkedIn Profile, and 1 Google My Business listing. 

After you do this, you’ll be taken to your dashboard, where you can continue configuring your profile. 

It’s all very straightforward since Zoho guides you every step of the way. If you run into any issues, you can reach out to the helpful support team. 

How Much Does Zoho Social Cost? 

Zoho Social isn’t the cheapest SMM solution out there. But it is a serious bargain. In addition to the 30-day full-featured free trial and free plan, the Basic tier starts from as low as $120 annually or $15 monthly. 

Here’s a look at the breakdown of the monthly pricing: 

The best thing you’ll notice is that collaboration is included in even the basic plan. This just makes sense since social media is so often a team exercise. Yet, most SMM tools will charge you extra for additional team members. 

For example, even Buffer, which is one of our most consistent SMM solution recommendations, requires you to be on a much more expensive plan ($65/month) to get just one more user! On the other hand, you get 2 users on the Standard Plan and can extra users for just $10/month. 

Further, you also get brand monitoring. It’s not the most comprehensive but added into an already affordable product further drives the ROI you’ll get from Zoho Social.

The Zoho Social Features You Should Know About 

There’s nothing particularly new about what Zoho offers. If you have used any quality SMM tool, then you already know what Zoho can do. 

1. Posts 

Publish, schedule, and create social media posts all in one place. You can also set up lead generation ads from here. 

Zoho also offers SmartQ, which is their twist on the best time to post, which will predict the best posting slots based on previous engagement. 

2. Monitoring 

Many SMM tools still don’t have built-in monitoring. That means if you want to do brand tracking, you’ll have to look elsewhere like Mention. 

Here you can monitor core keywords, hashtags, product reviews, and online mentions. Get the lowdown on what people are saying about the brands you manage across your social channels.

3. CRM Integration 

If you’re using Zoho’s CRM, then you should already be using Zoho Social as your SMM solution of choice! The integration is absolutely fluid. 

You can tag users, potential leads, or charts and be ready to tackle new projects together. The Collaboration tool is handy enough of its own, but this makes it truly stand-out. 

4. Reporting 

Zoho Social’s basic reporting is nothing to write home about. But when you upgrade to the $25/month Professional plan, you get access to advanced reporting. 

This not only includes sentiment analysis but also up to 14 extra columns to add to your Monitoring tab. This is another area that’s a real bargain considered Buffer’s Analyze, for example, starts at $35/month. 

5. Education 

Another reason why Zoho is great for newbies is the educational resources they offer. If you have never written a social post in your life or even if you’re an expert, they have excellent materials you can benefit from. 

Be sure not to miss the Social Media Marketing webinar. There are some tips in here that even pros can benefit from! 

Should I Use Zoho Social?

There’s a lot to love about Zoho Social. Our only nagging complaint is that it is the most robust option out there. For example, it only covers five social platforms without support for important ones like YouTube or TikTok. 

Likewise, it doesn’t offer post templates or links up to your blog. It’s a good overall tool that works well for most people’s needs. But it doesn’t have everything. 

That’s why Zoho is an excellent fit for small businesses, solo marketers, and some agencies that have your usual social media requirements. It’s also a great start for those just entering the SMM world before graduating onto something more sophisticated. 

Is Zoho Social Worth It? 

Absolutely. As far as bang for your buck goes, you can’t do much better than Zoho Social. It packs a ton of amazing features into plans that start at just $25/month. 

You’re not going to find posting, scheduling, analytics, monitoring, and collaboration in many other places for this cheap of a price. 

And since the majority of businesses stick to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google My Business, and LinkedIn, you’ll have most bases covered. 

But you can’t beat such a long free trial and free plan, so check it out for yourself.

Pros

• Tons of features 
• Great mobile app 
• Excellent value for money
• Integrates with other Zoho software
• Built around collaboration
• User-friendly UI 
• Easy-to-use 
• Includes brand monitoring 
• Useful education materials 
• Quick onboarding 

Cons

• Limited platform support 
• Not the most robust option out there

Zoho Social vs. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is one of the biggest names in SMM. It has many awesome features with extended platform support compared to Zoho Social, including sites like Vimeo and Foursquare. 

However, Zoho Social is much more affordable for teams starting from $129/month—ouch!  

Zoho Social vs. Buffer

We love Buffer. It’s hands down one of the best SMM tools out there. In terms of pricing, they’re fairly similar. But with Buffer, you also get access to Pinterest and can directly publish to Instagram—one of the only SMM tools that can do that. Zoho Social can only schedule IG posts. 

Once again, the main advantage of Zoho Social is better team pricing. For team access to Buffer, you’ll have to be ready to shell out $65/month vs. just $15 for Zoho. 

Features	Sprout Social	Hootsuite	Buffer
Free Plan	No, 30-day free trial	✓	✓
Pricing	From $99/month per user	From $29/month per user but $129 for Sprout Social Features	From $15/month per user, but $65 for more functionality.
Social Media Platforms	Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TripAdvisor,	Facebook (profile, page, group), Twitter, LinkedIn, extra profiles via third-party apps	Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest
Analytics	✓	✓	✓ but very basic
Collaboration Tools	✓	✓, but paid only	✓, but paid only
Publishing	✓	✓	Yes, with 1 content feed on free plan, additional on paid
Scheduling	Yes, unlimited	Yes, unlimited	10 posts/profiles for free. Unlimited on paid
Extra Features	✓	✓	✓

Zoho Social: The Bottom Line 

Zoho Social is an all-around excellent SMM tool ideal for most small businesses and digital marketers. It has tons of features, is very affordable, and easy and pleasant to use. Give the free trial a shot and see how well it can work for you.